We should, and the front office has indicated that it will, take the best player available, regardless of position/need. Having said that I find a couple of faults with your argument.

1) Since 1995, we have drafted the following defensive backs in the first 2 rounds: Bobby Taylor, Brian Dawkins, Lito Sheppard, Michael Lewis, Sheldon Brown, Nate Allen, Jaiquawn Jarrett, and Eric Rowe. So that's a future hall-of-famer, 3 All-Pros, A high-end starter, two underwhelming safeties who have been spot starters and the 2/3 corner on the defending Super Bowl champions. How the hell is that not working out?

2) If given the choice between equal players at corner and running back, corner is by far the more important position. After QB, it is tied right there with EDGE and LT for the most important and valuable position in the sport. We have people at all those spots. We had the worst corner play in the league this season per PFF and desperately need to upgrade. The vaunted Eagles secondary that carried our team until recently was built of drafting elite defensive backs, not on spending first round picks on a low value position in HB.

I don't mean to harp on OP specifically too much, but I have not been able to understand people's obsession with getting a running back in round 1. Sure Zeke was great this year, but that shouldn't for a second break from the tried and tested philosophies that build successful teams.

This 100 times this. An offensive weapon may be sexier than a corner, but we had the worst corners in the entire league last year and need to bring in at least 2 new starters. You can't do that in free agency effectively and Lattimore is the best corner in the draft and the best scheme fit.

Daniel Jeremiah has him as the #3 prospect in the entire draft: "Lattimore has average size but possesses elite foot quickness, agility, and awareness. In press coverage, he is very patient and fluid to open up and mirror underneath. He can play a variety of techniques successfully. In off coverage, he is very aware and explosive to drive on balls in front of him. He does an excellent job of locating and playing the ball down the field. He is outstanding in run support. He fights through blocks and attacks the line of scrimmage. He is a very sure tackler in space. I love the way he competes. He has all of the tools to develop into a No. 1 cornerback at the next level."

2012: 69.9 (rookie)
2013: 51.4 (missed first 6 weeks with wrist injury, was crap when he came back, but held QBs to a passer rating under 40 in final 4 weeks)
2014: 79.4 (Only year with Jim Shorts)
2015: 82.2 (Sexy Rexy 1)
2016: 73.2 (Sexy Rexy 2)

I love that PFF gives some kind of advanced statistical analysis, hence why I subscribe, but I also take all this with a grain of salt. McKelvin, by comparison, had a 69.5 rating this year, which seems a lot better than his play on the field. Jalen Mills was a fucking 34.5, which is just god awful, even though I felt like he made some good plays out there and a lot of receptions on him were because of playing an off technique. Then again I don't know shit.

I would head over to the Operation Sports forum (http://www.operationsports.com/forums/madden-nfl-football/) and take a look around, especially at the Teach Me How/Strategy Thread. There are a lot of knowledgeable posters there and I remember seeing some video breaking down all of the variations on Cover 3.

As an Eagles fan and huge Chip Kelly fan (thus a psuedo-Niners fan now) I'm a huge fan of you guys adding to the interior of your line. Biggest problem last year was how inept the guard play was...Chip is going to base his offense around the inside zone and without good guard play, you won't get production from that play and will see a lot of 3 and outs.

The only thing that I found surprising was that y'all went after a guard who wasn't particularly athletic. Chip loves having his guards and center pull and hit the second level, where I'm reading that Garnett is a little bit more of a "phone booth" kind of lineman. Does anyone have any insight into this? Is he more athletic than his Z-score/sigma score is letting on? Or does Chip have any plans to alter his prototype athletic guard?

This is horrible logic. I understand that chances need to be taken, but regardless of whether or not a team has ever won a championship, management should stay on the course that gives them the highest expected value and highest chance of winning in the future. Changing risk tolerance doesn't help this.

I agree. When Cooper was good two years ago, he was making a lot of big plays down field by tracking jump balls and using his baseball-like skills to bring them in. Last year Foles was missing a ton of those touch throws. It seemed like they were always a few yards over or under or sideways thrown. Watching some of Bradford's tape, he excels at those types of throws. He did a great job (on the whole) of dropping it in the bucket along the sideline, which is what Cooper needs to be a useful receiver.

A big part of it is that teams are keying on him right now. I forget the exact stat, but his yards per touch over the last 4 weeks or so are down substantially because when he's on the field he's the centre of the defense's attention. If we wanted to get him the ball more he would need to be on the field more in situations where he is not getting the ball to keep opposing defense's off balance. He's a below average blocker, so you aren't going to have him out there for run plays when he doesn't get the ball, and you aren't going to to take Shady, who is still just a substantially better football player, off the field anymore than you have to to keep him fresh.

Basically, I think that it's all about keeping defenses off guard, getting the proper match-ups for blocking, and keeping Shady on the field as much as you can because he is still the more dangerous player.

The Giants...Just how and why do you have to be so horrible to let the Cowboys win that game. HE HAD LIKE 8 SECONDS IN THE POCKET MULTIPLE TIMES ON THEIR LAST DRIVE...I COULD HAVE GOTTEN MORE FUCKING PRESSURE. And then Eli aka captain frittata comes out and decides to throw the ball 5 feet past the line on 4th and 2...I just hope you win out except for when we crush you so that you finish 7-9 and get a mediocre draft pick and keep Caughlin and captain frittata around for another year to wallow in mediocrity and disappointment.

I just moved to the US from Canada and do not have cable but want access to watching all the football. From what I understand this is from NFL Sunday Ticket, but their website is confusing the hell out of me. I want to be able to watch every game from my TV (via a PS3 or Apple TV) as well as from my laptop, iPad, iPhone etc. and don't really care how much it all costs. What package do I get and who do i send the monies to?

Also is there a way to get a box for my TV so that I can watch it regularly and have access to redzone without having to pay for cable as well?

Damion Square is a defensive lineman who backed up Bennie Logan after Soaps got traded to the Patriots. He was an I drafter free agent out of Alabama and played a little over 12% of defensive snaps last year.

I much prefer the generic soundtrack. I always found that the songs were specific enough that I notice them and then I would just get sick and tired and annoyed. The orchestra just become background noise that I don't really notice.

This worries me more than anything else next season. You can't count on these guys staying healthy again, especially given how 3 starters are over 30, and our depth is very unproven. Allan Barbe played well filling in for Peters last year, but past him no one had any meaningful experience playing in Chip's system on Sundays. This is the #1 area where I could see thin going wrong next year as our whole offense runs through the Oline being able to pull for shady and given Nick Folian Dynamite enough time to make his reads.

Schematic development. Offensively, Chip is able to play faster and be more multiple with his new weapons. The whole starting roster (sans Sproles) has already had a year in the fast-paced offense and should be able to play faster. New draftees Matthews and Huff are perfect schematic fits and have experience playing up tempo, so this shouldn’t be a problem for them. The receiving core is also more suited to Chip’s game. Gone is small DJax and slow Avant. In are bigger, faster players in Huff, Matthews and Maclin.

Maclin is also a fantastic fit for Chip’s offense given how much experience he has catching the ball behind the line of scrimmage and making things happen with his RAC ability while playing at Mizzou.

Defensively, Billy Davis had to play a very vanilla scheme last year while his players learned to play in the 3-4. After a year of this he can introduce more complex concepts and the like, no longer needing to focus on the basics. Based on this and the introduction of more players with 3-4 experience from the draft, he is able to play multiple defences, something he and Chip preach. This goes a long way to solving the deficient pass rush that was largely responsible for keeping us on the field so much last year.

Young players take the next step. Kendricks and Cox on defense. Ertz and Johnson on offense. All four have All-Pro potential that they have yet to live up to, which is fine given how young they are. If they can be true difference makers this season, the Iggles will be very difficult to contain.

Defensive depth. A big problem last year on defence was that we had 3 corners 2 safeties and 7 or 8 guys up front capable of playing meaningful snaps. Watkins, Reynolds, Jenkins, Caroll, and Maragos bring a ton more depth to the secondary. Even if it isn’t an elite unit and only has one excellent player (Boykin), we won’t get stuck in a situation like last year where Roc Carmicheal has to see meaningful snaps. Up front, Beau Allen, Marcus Smith, Taylor Heart and a healthy Joe Kruger give us more depth that helps us keep guys fresh and competitive

Special Teams dominance. Last year we went from horrendous on special teams to passable. This year we have the opportunity to become a top-flight unit. Jason Phillips was signed to be our special teams ace but tore his shit in training camp. Now he’ll be back along with Chris Maragos and Brian Braman, two more special teams leaders. Josh Huff and Sproles bring competition to the return game, which could use an upgrade. Murdeleg will hopefully supplant that asshat Alex Henery, while also striking fear into the hearts of everyone returning one of his kicks.

Won’t

Injuries on the offensive line. We were very lucky that outside of Jason Peters getting a tad banged up, our o-line remained healthy all year. It is the most important part of our offense and allowed Shady to run train on the league. We have 3 guys in their 30s and unproven depth, which could be a recipe for disaster and derail the offense.

The Seahawks Defence. I realize that this is supposed to be a more general thread, but the Seahawks defence lines up very well against our bigger, faster, smarter offence. If they do to us what they did to Denver it’s over.

Defence fails to improve. While the projection that the defence will improve after a year of experience in the 3-4 is logical, it’s still a projection. Last year could very well have just been how good the defence is. If the younguns remain inconsistent, Cole gets old fast and we fail to force turnovers, things could get ugly.

Young players fail to take the next step. I just touched on it, but if the guys from the past couple of drafts fail to improve, problems will arise quickly. Johnson is still raw as a tackle, Kendricks and Cox make too many mistakes and play too inconsistently. Foles is another guy who could regress/get figured out by other teams and not take continue to develop. Like every young team, we’re banking on our future stars becoming stars and if they don’t we won’t go very far.

Linebacker depth. Past the starters it’s a bit sketchy. Marcus Smith projects well. Najee Goode was good last year in spurts. If any of the starters go down and someone can’t step up to play in their place Billy Davis is going to have to get mighty creative.

I hope they tweak the way that backups gain experience. I purposely don't practice very much because it become way too easy to win everything when you get an extra 34000 xps a year for every player. Maybe a system where you could work a positional group or specific player would work, or being able to just work out back ups, or having players earn different amount a of experience from practice based on performance. I don't really know what the answer is but there has to be a way for me to develop prospects without making my team unbearable in the process.